Animal Ethics

JANUARY 25, 2016

When philosophy helps us to live our lives in conformity with our most deeply held values, it becomes a transformative experience. By subjecting our beliefs, attitudes, and practices to critical scrutiny, we learn what our most deeply held values are—an essential first step toward acting in accordance with those values.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 5, 2011

Like the animals that share our homes, roosters experience pain and fear, and they don’t want to die. There are plenty of ways to get a killer look, without killing animals. Many people don’t realize that roosters are confined in tiny cages for most of their lives and killed for their feathers.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

I applaud his recognition that cows are individual feeling beings that share with us the ability to experience happiness and contentment, fear and pain. Kristof describes “happy” cows that are loved “like children” by an organic dairy farmer.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 24, 2012

The initial attractiveness of utilitarianism as a moral theory on which to rest the call for the better treatment of animals was noted in an earlier context. Because animals are sentient (i.e.,

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Animal Ethics

JULY 22, 2008

Our findings follow many other studies demonstrating mental anguish in traumatized animals. Suffering is far from a uniquely human experience. I was astonished by how many displayed behaviors that overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other trauma-related disorders.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 25, 2010

At our farm sanctuary, we see how much chickens rescued from factory farms delight in these experiences. Like humans, animals have a right to enjoy life. They will still lack the freedom to engage in natural behaviors like foraging and nesting. Most will never know sunlight, breezes, plants or soil.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 28, 2008

How many of you think this experiment is justified? If you think it's justified, would it be justified if the experimental subjects were orphaned children?

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 5, 2008

On Day 1 of her 21-day experiment with veganism, Oprah aptly asked: "How can you say you're trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?" Why not join Oprah in her experiment? Oprah Winfrey goes vegan for 21 days.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Again, all or most men in whom the moral consciousness is strongly developed find themselves from time to time in conflict with the commonly received morality of the society to which they belong: and thus—as was before said—have a crucial experience proving that duty does not mean to them what other men will disapprove of them for not doing.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 3, 2009

Baird Callicott , "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," Environmental Ethics 2 [winter 1980]: 311-38, at 335-6 [italics in original]) Note from KBJ: My "outrage at vivisection and factory farming" has nothing to do with "the transmogrification of organic to mechanical processes."

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 1, 2010

Why not make this the year that you get serious and take a meaningful step toward improving your health and reducing your waistline by experimenting with a vegan diet for 21 days. This 21-day program is designed for anyone who wants to explore and experience the health benefits of a vegan diet, and its free! That's right, free!

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 3, 2008

That is, they contribute to increasing, in the long run, the quantity of satisfaction which an individual experiences. The issue is: Does he gain more value than he would experience if he let them live? If an animal's foot is crushed, that is bad for the animal, just as, if a man's foot is crushed, that is bad for the man.

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Animal Ethics

MAY 14, 2008

The question of whether animals possess rights is once again topical, largely as a result of the recent surge of interest in animal welfare and in the moral pros and cons of eating animals and using them in scientific research.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 26, 2007

The use of chimpanzees for research has declined significantly in the last decade mostly because of high costs and growing public opposition to relying on these animals in invasive experiments. It is time to retire chimpanzees in labs to sanctuaries like Chimp Haven. Kathleen Conlee Washington, Nov.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2007

But bulls are not cars, but rather living beings that experience pain and suffering. If there were transparency to the public spectacle of bull riding, it would be clear that this is a frantically scared animal desperately trying to escape. This is music to the ears of advertisers.

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Animal Ethics

AUGUST 31, 2008

Nothing I have said in earlier chapters and nothing I will say in subsequent chapters is intended to deny this fact, which animal rightists correctly insist upon. But animals lack that reflective awareness which enables us to see our experiences and acts as our own (and thereby, of course, unlike animals, to be responsible for our acts). (

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 21, 2007

In fact, as anyone with any sense knows, it destroys human life, depriving fetuses of activities, experiences, projects, and enjoyments. Those of you who care about animals might want to join Matthew Scully and me on the conservative side. So much for progressives being concerned about the vulnerable.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2010

Either the vegetarian argues on utilitarian premises, or he tries to supplement or replace his utilitarianism with some plausible non-utilitarian principles implying the wrongfulness of rearing and killing animals for food.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2008

Similarly, most people also agree that: (2) It is wrong to kill a conscious sentient animal for no good reason. For example, Carl Cohen, who has argued at length that animals don’t have rights, admits: If animals feel pain (and certainly mammals do,), we humans surely ought cause no pain to them that cannot be justified.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 10, 2009

Certain of our killings of them clearly maximally unjustly prevent their realization of such life-purposes (or if this appears too grandiose a term, with the desires to do things which they experience).

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 3, 2007

Philadelphia, PA Find out how you can become an active participant in national efforts to protect farm animals from abuse at this one-day conference. Designed to raise awareness about current farm animal issues and campaigns, this unique event offers educational opportunities for activists of all experience levels.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 17, 2007

People who adopt from animal shelters will tell you that it’s not only a rewarding experience, but also that shelters are filled with a smorgasbord of the most amazing, delightful, intelligent dogs you’ll ever find on the planet.

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Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 29, 2008

Whereas it once used to be argued, as by Newman , that the least human good compensates for any possible amount of animal suffering, the current doctrine is that it requires a considerable good to compensate for such suffering. Biological warfare against human beings is generally condemned but not biological warfare against animals.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 11, 2007

In all cases the principle is the same—am I prepared to accept a maxim which would allow this to be done to me, were I in the position of this man or animal, and capable of having only the experiences, desires, &c., of him or it? (R. Hare, Freedom and Reason [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963], 222-3 [italics in original])

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Animal Ethics

APRIL 3, 2007

When Jesus died on the cross, He didn't just save us humans—He died for the animals, too. Prior to Jesus' death on the cross, animal sacrifices were a common and vital part of every family's worship experience. The animals took the place of humans.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2007

It may sound odd that there could be a good, gentle, or easy death, since death destroys the possibility of enjoyments, activities, projects, and experiences, which give our lives value and meaning; but if one's life is racked with pain and there is little or no prospect of recovery, death can seem, and be, preferable.

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Animal Ethics

JULY 17, 2008

For a non-self-conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Sentience suffices to place a being within the sphere of equal consideration of interests; but it does not mean that the being has a personal interest in continuing to live.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2010

If a person is in a discipline in which he or she is attempting to understand a culture or wants to experience a culture, vegetarianism is nearly impossible. So, how you would respond a person like me who cares for animal welfare, consciously stays away from the worse meat he can, and eats it mostly for cultural reasons.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 2, 2008

And, of course, by experimenting with all sorts of new vegan dishes, you will be learning a new healthier way of cooking and eating. Like resolution 7, resolution 11 is primarily an other-regarding resolution (even though those who respect animals and refuse to eat them will experience profound health benefits as a result).

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 31, 2006

And, of course, by experimenting with all sorts of new vegan dishes, you will be learning a new healthier way of cooking and eating. Like resolution 7, resolution 11 is primarily an other-regarding resolution (even though those who respect animals and refuse to eat them will experience profound health benefits as a result).

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

Animals in the wild try to escape from hunters.) But recent experiments with chimpanzees suggest that the day may be near when we can ask trained chimpanzees if they want to be eaten for food. Such animals would be incapable of feeling pain or having experiences of any kind. Would it be permissible to eat them?

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 29, 2006

Sadly, Gillette's experience is not unique. Feeding your child a diet that will predispose her to heart disease, some cancers, obesity, and diabetes is not offensive, while feeding your child the most nutritious food available is so "offensive" that the breast-feeding mother guilty of that offense had to be physically removed from the plane.

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Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 23, 2006

Jonathan Hubbell, a philosophy major at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the newest member of the Animal Ethics blog, and once again, I would like to welcome him aboard. There simply is no good reason to kill animals for food when plant-based foods are available.

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Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

Our experience on the ground confirms your reporting that this trade is increasingly tied to organized crime. To the Editor: Your reporting on the illegal ivory trade (“ Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits ,” “The Price of Ivory” series, front page, Sept.

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